And did those feet, someone once asked, in ancient time, walk upon England's mountain green? The short answer is no. The longer answer is contained in the North Sea Scrolls, crucial excerpts of which will be revealed shortly.

The North Sea Scrolls constitute arguably the most discombobulating archaeological discovery of modern times. The documents were found stashed beneath the floorboards of an East Anglian boarding house, laid in seven lines of seven, inside an elderly portmanteau maddeningly shorn of identifying labels.

When the mildew was scraped off by the deck-shoed and goateed Irish property developer who inadvertently disinterred the hoard, it became clear that the North Sea Scrolls were of immense and terrifying historical significance. They secrete the hidden true story of these islands, chronicling a phenomenon much suspected, occasionally hinted at, and never spoken of: the suffering of the English.

The means by which the scrolls passed into the possession of their present custodians demands no illumination. Though much derring was done, and swash buckled, in the process of acquisition, it is all but a jam sandwich compared to what the scrolls themselves reveal.

Needless to elaborate, the decision to relate these tidings in song was not taken lightly.